The Hummel Quest Tales: Fortress
by autophagy
Summary: Fortress is a Jagdtiger 88 who got involved in a fight that cannot end well. Oneshot for now, until I can think of where to take this story.


_[A/N: Please note that in this story, RNG does not apply to penetration values.]_

A battle was raging inside the town. Brawling heavies, medium tanks, lights, tank destroyers and artillery fought relentlessly for the upper hand. The two teams had run into each other as they both had intended to take the town, and of course this matter could only be settled by a fight. But as the casualties increased, it slowly became apparent that neither team was stronger than the other – which could only result in one thing.

In the middle of the struggle, a Jagdtiger 88 tried to avert exactly that fate; they called him Fortress. Another enemy died by his cannon, but at the same time one of his team mates fell. Their commander. Chaos broke out on the radio channel. Fortress knew one thing – if the battle went on like this, there would be no one left to keep the town, on either side. He hurried onward as fast as his engine let him, stopped before a wreck of a Rhm. Borsig and pushed it forward as he cautiously advanced into the junction. One of his team mates was there, and their gazes met, but suddenly the T69 blew up and a KV-4 rolled past it. The heavy noticed the Jagdtiger at once and seemed shocked for a moment, backing up slightly. A lot of tanks feared Jagdtigers, and many also couldn't tell a Jagdtiger's mighty 12.8cm from the less devastating 8.8cm when they saw it.

But even the 8.8cm could do the job. The KV-4 bounced a shot off the Jagdtiger's superstructure, then angled its turret and hull as it reloaded. Fortress shot the other tank's turret ring, and the fact that the heavy tank couldn't seem to turn its cannon towards him anymore told him that it had had the desired effect. Before the TD could reload, a Super Pershing appeared next to the KV-4, but it reversed behind its team mate at the sight of the hull down German. Fortress kept his cool. He had been outnumbered many times, but when he was in a good position like that, he could make it. He held his fire, waiting for the KV-4 to make the mistake it was going to make. In an attempt to get a line of fire despite its jammed turret, the heavy turned its whole hull around. Fortress had been waiting for exact that moment and shot the flat part of its upper front plate. It was a lucky shot; the tank started smoking and its cannon sank.

The Super Pershing peeked out from behind its defeated team mate, but immediately was hit in the outer drive wheel, which caused the track to snap off. Too bad for the guy. If it had just backed up and taken another lane, it could have flanked the Jagdtiger. But it was too late for that now. Also too bad for Fortress. He had been hoping to hit the glacis. Now not enough of the other tank was showing to comfortably take it apart from his spot. Two more allies stopped transmitting as the Jagdtiger rushed the medium tank. He took a shot in the upper front plate, which hurt like hell but broke nothing vital, and made short work of his opponent after all.

As he stood next to the wrecks and looked around warily, he tried the frequencies of his team mates, but only one of them seemed to be alive still. So it was two against two.

"Where are you?" Fortress asked. The Black Prince replied at once, but in the middle of her telling him her position there was a scream, the roar of a cannon, and the unmistakable noise of a tank blowing up. Her end went silent after that. Fortress realized that he was the only one left.

With a grim expression he turned the corner, and found himself cannon to cannon with a Kanonenjagdpanzer. Those pests had recently started popping up everywhere. It was in a bad shape. A town was not a good place for a thinly armoured TD. Fortress didn't hesitate and pulled the trigger, and the searing hot blast of the explosion let him flinch, but he shrugged it off. Now only one enemy tank was left. There was a feeling of futility, as killing the last remaining enemy tank when there were no winners left served little purpose, but it was drowned out by the rush of adrenaline.

He had heard cannonfire in the direction where he was going, and it had sounded mighty enough for a T34 – the last enemy. The Jagdtiger knew that he wouldn't stand a chance against the heavy if they were to brawl it out. But down the lane he could see a pile of rubble next to one of the houses, and he hurried to reach it. Before he could hide behind it, he saw a turret appear behind a wreck next to a building corner. Just when he had a clear shot, it turned towards him and a shell came flying into his direction. The poorly aimed shot missed, instead hitting the rubble and causing its components to be splattered everywhere. There was still plenty left of the pile however, and Fortress reached it immediately afterwards. He angled his armour and hoped that the heavy didn't carry any APCR. But even if he didn't, it looked bad for the Jagdtiger. He couldn't do anything in his position. His shells wouldn't go through the thick turret armour, and he doubted that this guy was stupid enough to expose his hull.

However, he didn't seem to be the smartest either. Another shell was fired, hitting Fortress' casemate. It bounced off. The Jagdtiger didn't dare to breathe a sigh of relief yet. He frantically thought about his possibilities, and he was almost sure that the next shell would be an APCR one. But instead, ten seconds later, a HE shell blew up in his face. Fortress spluttered at the burning sensation, but other than causing him pain and breaking one of his view ports, it didn't achieve anything. He retaliated by trying to shoot the roof of the heavy's turret, but missed. At least he could be sure now that the other tank was just as desperate as he was. No APCR. Some luck amongst all the bad luck of the day.

The T34 obviously decided that using HE was futile, and had switched back to AP as his next shell bounced off the Jagdtiger, leaving a nasty mark. Fortress was starting to get annoyed. He hated when people kept shooting him even though they had no realistic chance of getting through his armour.

"Stop." he shouted with exasperation. Another shot hit his casemate, burying itself in the metal but not breaking through. The Jagdtiger cursed and backed up slightly into the remains of a building, but kept the heavy in his sights. "You're being ridiculous!" he griped. "All you're gonna achieve is running out of ammo!" He regretted giving the other tank that hint immediately. A tactical fauxpas. The T34 really did stop shooting.

As Fortress was sure that he wouldn't get shot again, he rolled back up to the pile of rubble. The other tank was staring at him now. Fortress tilted his cannon. Time for his more desperate strategies.

"What's wrong? Aren't you going to come and circle me?" he shouted.  
"If you ask like that I sure won't" the T34 replied.  
"Clever." The Jagdtiger 88 had upgraded his engine to that of a regular Jagdtiger long ago. He could easily outmanoeuvre someone as cumbersome as a T34. Many only found out about this when it was too late, if they even managed to reach him before getting tracked.

"So, what now?" the T34 asked after a moment of silent staring. He too had realized that this was going nowhere. Fortress hummed pensively.  
"You could surrender" he said.  
"Like hell I will" the heavy growled, "Why don't _you_ surrender?"  
"There's literally no point in us killing each other" the Jagdtiger said, "Of course I'll gladly kill you anyway if you insist."  
"Oh? How?" the T34 replied. "Are you gonna teleport behind me?"  
"What if I did?" Fortress said defiantly.

A chuckle escaped the T34, but he stifled it quickly.

"You're right, there's no point" he admitted eventually, serious again. "But you're going to shoot me if I come out."  
"I might" Fortress rumbled. The T34 felt that he meant it and hesitated.  
"Well, let's think this through" the heavy said, "Assuming I come out, then what?"  
Fortress thought about the question. With their teams being dead, they were in trouble. He didn't know either what to do. As he remained silent, the T34 spoke up again.

"How about we both come out at the same time?" he suggested. Fortress liked that idea a little bit better. This was going to turn into a stalemate if both of them kept hidden. They would be sitting here forever. He nodded slowly.  
"Okay." he said.

After some hesitation, both tanks cautiously rolled out of their cover.  
A moment of tense silence followed; then they both fired. There were two outcries and they immediately retreated.

"Fool!" Fortress barked.  
"Fucking-" the T34 cursed.

Both of them were equally upset that they had been shot and that their own shot hadn't killed the other. They went back to glaring at each other.

"Great" Fortress said dryly. "So, sitting here until we starve it is."  
The T34 gave him a sore look.  
"Don't act like you didn't shoot too!" he hissed.  
Fortress' engine grumbled in response. He sunk heavily on his suspension and sighed.  
"How are you enjoying our town so far?" he asked after several minutes of silence.  
" _Our_ town?"  
"Well, you didn't win, did you? It's a draw, so it belongs to both of us."  
The T34 nodded thoughtfully.  
"It's a bit lonely" he said, "Didn't expect to have it all for myself, you know?"  
"Yeah."  
"Actually I think it belongs to neither of us" the T34 went on. "Technically the battle isn't over yet."

Fortress snorted. The last thing he would have expected out of this fight was ending up discussing technicalities with a heavy tank.  
"Does it really matter?" he asked.  
Even if they teamed up, the town was really of no use to them anymore. Two tanks wouldn't be able to defend it.  
"I guess it doesn't" the T34 said with a defeated roll of his cannon.

A sudden movement behind Fortress made him hastily look back through his view ports, but he did not move his cannon away from the T34. The heavy didn't move either. A Luchs had appeared in the lane, and at the sight of the two tanks it froze for a moment, then yelped and raced up to the Jagdtiger, hiding behind him. It had been too far down the lane to quickly reverse back out of it, probably thinking that the two tanks in it were dead at first. Fortress couldn't see it anymore, but he had caught a glimpse of the light's cannon, which made him nervous. Moreover, he doubted that this tank had come alone. A third team must have shown up. They had probably just waited until the battle was over to effortlessly take the town afterwards. It looked like they hadn't expected to find any survivors.

The Jagdtiger shifted on his suspension uncomfortably and noticed that the T34's posture had grown tenser as well.

"Shoo" Fortress said, "Can't you see that we're in the middle of something here?"  
The Luchs peeked out from behind him, but backed up again quickly.  
"Why aren't you shooting?" the light tank asked.  
"We can't hurt each other" the Jagdtiger explained.  
"Why?"  
"Our armour is too strong" Fortress went on patiently. There was a small "Ohhh" followed by "So it's a draw."  
"Actually…" the T34 began to say, but Fortress completed the sentence for him.  
"….the battle's still going on." he said, sounding slightly weary about that fact by now.  
"But" the Luchs said with an audible frown, "Neither of you can win! What's the point?"  
"He's gonna give up eventually" Fortress whispered. The Luchs whispered back simply because Fortress had been whispering too.  
"Are you sure about that?"

The T34 craned his cannon, trying to hear them.  
"Are you guys fraternizing over there?" he asked, unable to fully hide the earnest concern in his voice. Fortress realized that he could ask the Luchs to go and circle the heavy tank on his behalf, and maybe they would even do it, but that would be a cowardly thing to do. This was between the T34 and him; involving someone else felt wrong. He ignored the question and addressed the Luchs again, in a normal volume.

"I'm guessing your team will arrive soon" he rumbled thoughtfully.  
"Yep" the Luchs replied.  
"What will they do with us?"  
"Not my decision."  
Fortress tilted his cannon.  
"I'm sure you told them about us already" he said. The Luchs fell silent for a moment, then hesitantly answered.  
"We don't know yet…"  
"I see."

Only moments later, the first tank appeared in the lane behind the T34. It was a tier 6. A tier 7 followed, and Fortress noticed other tanks popping up behind him as well, until the whole team had gathered. All guns were pointed at the two survivors. The Jagdtiger slowly raised his cannon barrel, and the T34 followed suit after a moment of hesitation.


End file.
